Just You and Me
by C. Lizzy
Summary: Simon and Tessa reminisce about their deceased loved ones.


Just You and Me

**AN: This is just something that crossed my mind the other day. I wrote it fairly fast on an iPad with autocorrect issues so there may be mistakes even though I double checked it. Anyway, enjoy! Reviews are welcome as always!**

It had been ten years since everyone Simon Lewis loved died and close to two hundred years since everyone Tessa Gray loved died. Even Magnus Bane, their only other immortal friend, had passed away. Now it was just Simon and Tessa alone at a downworld bar on a rainy day, trying to forget their woes if even just for a night.

Out of the corner of his eye, Simon saw a flicker of dark brown hair. _Isabelle, _he thought. He began to stand up to go to her when she turned around. Her skin was an abnormal shade of green. It was just a warlock. Simon sighed and sat back down.

"Who was it this time?" Tessa asked with genuine concern.

"Isabelle," Simon sighed, swirling his cup of blood with a straw. Everything he saw reminded him of someone. Even the bright red blood reminded him of Clary's hair, which was ridiculous since he had never compared her hair to blood before.

"Does it ever get better?" he asked Tessa, who had loved with loss much longer than he had.

Tessa shook her head. "I still see Jem and Will in everything. Seeing the Lightwood boy was nearly unbearable." An image of a blue eyed, black haired boy popped into Tessa's mind. Whether it was Alec or Will, she didn't know.

"How do you deal with it?"

"Remember them. It sounds cheesy, but think about the good times you spent with them. You'll never forget, so you might as well remember."

A moment of silence passed between the two. Simon broke the silence by saying, "Tell me about them."

"Will and Jem?" Simon nodded. Tessa looked up at the ceiling and almost smiled. She looked so young doing this compared to how she usually looked, Simon thought. There was a sort of old, wise look about Tessa despite the fact that she was frozen at nineteen.

"Jem was... He was a steady flame. He was always there when you needed someone to lean on. Everything about him was good. I don't remember him ever getting upset. Except once-" Tessa recalled the time Will went to an ifrit den and how angry Jem was afterward. That was the only time she could remember him being truly angry. "He was my husband for nearly three years."

"Were you divorced?" Simon asked, curiosity getting the better of him.

"No," she answered gravely. "He died." There was pain in her voice, letting Simon know that the topic was closed.

"What about Will?"

"Oh, Will," Tessa said, sounding both dreamy and sad at the same time. "Will was Jem's parabatai. He was much like Jace was to Alec. He was always making jokes, he was arrogant, and he would do anything to protect his parabati."

"Yes, that sounds just like Jace," Simon said. A new memory resurfaced, one of a gray haired Clary weeping at her husband's funeral nearly two years before her own death. Simon had held her on her feet as they watched Jace's body burn. It was not a pleasant memory.

"After Jem died he was a different person. There wasn't a day that went by where he wasn't sad. I don't think he ever truly got over it."

"Did you?" Simon asked.

After a moment of thought Tessa answered, "No, not really. I don't know if I ever will."

"You must have loved him a lot."

"I did." Tessa was close to tears. She wanted desperately to change the topic. "What about your Clary and Isabelle? What were they like?" Tessa had known the two of them, but not as well as Simon.

Simon was silent for a moment. Tessa thought he hadn't heard the question until he said, "Clary was my best friend. I even thought of her as a sister. She was funny, strong, kind, independent, beautiful... She always fought for what she thought was right, even if it meant putting herself in danger. There's nothing she wouldn't have done for the people she loved." Simon thought of the Oni demon that attacked Clary's granddaughter. Clary jumped in front of it to save the fourteen year old. She not only failed to save her grandchild, she lost her own life. She was sixty-one when she died.

"Isabelle was my wife for fifty years." Tessa felt a pang of envy that he got to be with the person he loved for so long while she only got a little of two years. "She was... She was my everything. I still don't know how I live without her." His voice cracked. Isabelle was the last of his loved ones to die. She had been seventy-one when she got Alzheimer's. By the time she died at seventy-six, she couldn't even remember Simon's name.

"It sounds like you loved them both," Tessa observed.

"Yes, I did."

"Have you ever loved anyone since?"

"No." The thought of trying to find someone else had crossed Simon's mind but as hard as he tried, he couldn't. After a year or two, he gave up.

"Neither have I."

Tessa laid her hand on top of Simon's. Simon looked at her with surprise but didn't remove his hand. Tessa looked into Simon's eyes smiled sadly. "But I'm willing to try."

Simon turned his hand over and laced his fingers with Tessa's. He whispered, "I am, too."

For the first time in three days, a ray of sunlight pierced through the clouds.


End file.
